


On A Wing And A Prayer

by RainyDayDecaf



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Humor, M/M, Mentions of genocide, Motion Sickness, Noah's Ark, Orphans, Pre-Arrangement (Good Omens), Pre-Relationship, Seasickness, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 16:50:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20642474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainyDayDecaf/pseuds/RainyDayDecaf
Summary: For the second time in his eternal life, Aziraphale disobeys the Almighty and saves a child from the Great Flood.  Not to be outdone, Crawly saves just a few more.





	On A Wing And A Prayer

**Author's Note:**

> So I made a post on tumblr that kind of blew up overnight (like, holy hell, did it blow up!), and there have already been some wonderful people who have taken this concept and made their own art and fanfic, which is AMAZING. So after endless procrastinating, I decided to join in with my own iteration. Thank you to everyone who liked/reblogged the original post!

"Shhh, shhh, it's alright, please you _must_ be quiet," Aziraphale hissed once he was below deck and out of the rain. The toddler in his arms paid him no mind. She squirmed in his hold, shrieking fit to wake the dead, and he shushed her frantically as he hurried down through the levels of the Ark, ducking in deserted corridors and keeping far away from where he knew Noah and his sons were working to secure the animals. Very nearly, he prayed that no one would hear her cries, but Aziraphale bit off the words at the last moment, just in case the Almighty decided to listen in.

He shouldn't have taken the child. He’d known it even as he’d done it, he’d been _explicitly_ _told_ to guard the Ark and not allow any other humans on board. For days and days, he had stood on the deck and watched the rain fall. Cold and heavy, impenetrable like a curtain, it had thundered down and swelled the rivers and swept away all those quaint little Mesopotamian farms and villages. Every field and garden, every road and building, all of the animals both wild and domestic. And he had watched the Mesopotamians slowly reach the understanding that survival would not be possible. He had watched them frantically try to build their own boats, then watched them flee to higher and higher ground until there was nowhere left to go.

He had watched many of them drown. Aziraphale had really tried very hard not to see that part, but the eyes of an angel missed very little.

He was meant to keep them off the Ark, but in the end only one small group had made the attempt to board. Four of them in all—two women, an elderly man, and the baby girl. Aziraphale had paced the deck in growing dread as they climbed up the hull with frayed rope and rudimentary tools. Knowing he was meant to be stopping them, yet unable to talk himself into actually raising his hand and striking them down.

But in the end, there had been no need for his intervention.

The elderly man had been the first to fall, the ropes snapping under his weight and sending him plummeting. Then one of the women had followed when her foot slipped, and the raging waters had taken her with hardly a sound. That had left only the second woman with the toddler in a sling on her chest, and she had been within reach of the railing before her own ropes began to fail.

Aziraphale had made the fatal mistake of looking into her eyes in those last fleeting seconds. And when she had held out the child with a desperate prayer on her lips, he had thought… well, angels were meant to answer prayers, weren't they? That was the whole _point_.

And now here he was, trapped on the world’s biggest boat with an orphan in his care and no idea what to do about it. His hands shook, his heart thrashed like a caged bird, the tiny act of disobedience weighing heavy on his conscience. The back of his neck prickled every time he heard a roll of thunder from the sky, like he might turn around any moment and see a host of seraphim with their swords drawn, ready to strike him down where he stood.

But it didn’t happen. No booming voices in the sky, no disapproving coworkers glaring over his shoulder. He reached the lowest level of the Ark without so much as a singed feather. There were no windows at this depth, just a lot of storerooms packed with crates of food and barrels of fresh water. Aziraphale choose one of the smaller ones and hunkered down behind a crate, holding his breath and listening intently for footsteps or voices. But all he could hear was the slap of waves against the hull. His ethereal senses informed him that he was quite alone and unobserved. For the moment, anyway.

Aziraphale relaxed, shuddering a bit from the chill. He summoned some divine light and dried their clothes with an idle thought before taking his first proper look at the girl in his arms.

"Well. Out of the rain, at least. This is better, isn't it?"

The girl blinked up at him and stuck her fist in her mouth.

"…no, I suppose not," Aziraphale muttered, throat going tight with emotion. This poor child. She couldn’t have been more than two years old. He pinched the rough blanket between his fingers, made a face and willed the fabric to be a little softer and warmer. 

Noah couldn’t know of this. _Nobody_ could know. The sword had been one thing, he could blame that on being careless if anyone asked, but there was no excuse in the world that could absolve him of this. There was no _accidentally_ saving someone from drowning.

“I do hope you won't be too much trouble,” Aziraphale said under his breath. “I’m breaking an awful lot of rules right now by letting you be here. We must be very discreet, you understand? Can you do that for me?”

The girl screwed up her face.

_Oh dear_, Aziraphale thought and cringed when her unhappy wail made the cattle and oxen on the next level bellow and stamp their hooves.

This was not going to be a pleasant boat ride.

* * *

Twenty days later, rain continued to fall. The Ark was now fully afloat, buffeted from all sides by powerful swells, but never once in danger of sinking or capsizing. Noah’s family were up to their elbows in frightened, bleating animals, only venturing downstairs once a day to fetch food and water. They paid no attention whatsoever to their angelic passenger, either too intimidated to approach him or too preoccupied with their God-given task, and so his little stowaway remained undiscovered.

Just as well. Aziraphale was learning the hard way that the universe had a knack for making one pay for one's mistakes, even when the higher powers were looking the other way.

"No!"

Aziraphale flinched back from the half-chewed crumbs being flung at his face. "Dear one, it's only manna bread. You had some yesterday, and the day before that. You didn't mind it then. Just one bite, that's all I ask…"

The toddler—who he had learned through much coaxing was named Hannah—furiously slapped her hands down on the bread and mashed it further into the wooden floor. "No! No yucky!"

"It is _not_ yucky," Aziraphale protested. "I conjured it from the ether myself. Look, see? I like it."

He nibbled at the crust and immediately gagged. Oh, it was _awful_. Dry and dusty and tasteless, like chewing on sand. And what was worse, the merest suggestion of food caused his stomach to churn in a horribly familiar way. He retched, bile flooding his mouth and sending him scrambling for the nearest bucket. His corporation, Aziraphale was learning, did _not_ like boats. It did not like how the floor heaved and pitched with the larger waves, it did not like the reek of brine and fish overlaying everything, and it _especially_ did not like being trapped in a dingy storage room below the water level with no fresh air, no horizon, nothing to distract him from his miserable circumstances.

_This is the price you pay for defying God_, Aziraphale thought as he puked up his guts for the third time that day. It took long minutes to regain his composure and dispose of the vile mess in the bucket, by which point Aziraphale barely had the energy to slump down beside his charge and summon a cup of tepid water to hand. Hannah paused in her mashing of the manna to peer up at his sweaty, pallid complexion.

Aziraphale cleared his throat and gestured at the bread. "See? It's delicious, really."

She flung another chunk at him. "No!"

Aziraphale closed his eyes, prayed for patience and decided to try being strict for once. "Now listen, young lady. You've already said no to porridge and rice, so it's either manna or nothing. I really don't know what else you want from me."

"_Nooo!_" Hannah whined. "Wanna grabbab!"

"…I don't know what a grabbab is."

"Grabbabab!"

"Gra… oh!" It finally clicked. "A _grape_. You want grapes, is that it?"

"Grabbab!"

“Er,” Aziraphale floundered and cast around. Dietary selection was limited on the Ark. The aforementioned rice and porridge, some pickled vegetables for variety. He supposed there might also be eggs and milk from the chickens and goats upstairs, if he dared to run up and fetch some. And, of course, there was fish in abundance.

But no grapes.

"I don't think that's going to be possible, my dear," Aziraphale said.

The girl glared at him like he was being monumentally stupid on purpose. She sucked in a deep breath.

"Oh no, _no_..."

"_GRAAAABABBABA—!_"

Aziraphale clapped a hand over her mouth. "Alright, alright, you demanding thing!"

He snapped his fingers. Somewhere in Sicily, a bunch of grapes vanished from the vine right in front of a harvester's nose. They reappeared in Aziraphale’s hands, and Hannah clapped her hands in delight. Then she promptly shoved three grapes into her mouth and choked. Aziraphale miracled her windpipe clear and thereafter watched her like a hawk.

"You know I can't make a habit of this, my dear. I'm not meant to be doing any big miracles here. A few small ones here and there for my own comfort is one thing, but I can't just frivolously whip up a feast on command every single day. We’re trying to be subtle, I’ll remind you.”

Hannah blew a raspberry.

"Oh, don't give me that."

The Ark tipped over another wave, the floor beneath them slanting. Aziraphale groaned and pressed his forehead to his knees and breathed through yet another bout of nausea. "I am _never_ getting on another boat for as long as I live,” he swore to himself. “Never again! And I will certainly be sending a complaint to Head Office about this body. I know it was created before boats were invented, but one would _think_ they would be prepared for every eventuality. I mean, really! If this whole Ark business was in the Great Plan from the Beginning, it wouldn’t have been too much to ask…”

His words trailed off when he noticed his audience was no longer listening, the grapes holding all her attention. Giggling to herself, Hannah wrenched them off the bunch by the handful and crushed them in her hands before feasting on the remains like a vengeful leviathan, fingers and chin sticky with the juices. Some unlucky few grapes were hurtled across the room and lost among the crates, no doubt to be devoured later by one of the two rats aboard the Ark. It was quite the massacre. Not a single grape would be spared.

Guilt crushed him, all but knocking the breath from his lungs. She had lost everything almost overnight. Her family, her culture, her home, all that she had once known had been wiped off the face of the earth. She still cried for her mother most nights, sobbing hysterically in his arms until exhaustion claimed her, too young to grasp the enormity of her loss. And the worst part was that there would be no one left to tell her of the Flood and her mother’s bravery. Hannah would spend the rest of her life being raised as someone else, with a new family and a new name and no clear memory of where she had come from and what she had been through.

And here he was complaining about a little _seasickness_.

“…I’m so very sorry,” Aziraphale murmured. Useless though it was, he felt compelled to say it anyway. “If you were just a bit older, I’m sure you’d be furious with the likes of me. You’d want to ask me why, but I wouldn’t have an answer to give you. I don’t understand it either.”

Well, that wasn’t quite true. He knew the reason, but he doubted it would go over very well. _God didn’t like all that tribal warfare and blood sacrifices to false gods, not to mention the thieves and slavers and murderers running rampant. In the interest of efficiency and in her eternal love, She decided to wipe out your entire civilization and start over again from scratch._

Shaking off the snide voice in his head, Aziraphale pressed his lips together and told himself to cease such blasphemous thoughts. The Mesopotamians had been out of control for a number of generations, even he could admit that. But they _had_ been getting the hang of it. Slowly. They had gotten farming down at least and begun a thriving trade between their communities. Aziraphale had seen so much potential for _good_, despite the struggles they faced.

Yet it hadn’t been enough. Their souls had still been deemed beyond salvation. And as a servant of Heaven, Aziraphale was not meant to question that, only to carry out the sentence.

"Grabbab?"

Aziraphale drifted back to reality and blinked down at the grape being offered. "Oh. No, my dear, that's alright. Better not risk it. I think my poor corporation has suffered enough.”

But rather than take no for an answer, Hannah crawled into his lap and smooshed the grape against his lips. "Eaaa!" she said, mouth wide open. Perhaps trying to demonstrate how the concept of eating worked.

With a sigh, he let her pop the grape in his mouth, though he quickly vanished it again with a flick of his fingers. She didn't seem in any hurry to leave his lap after that, so Aziraphale wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her head.

His heavenly associates would be appalled to see him now, Aziraphale thought with a weak smile. He did wonder at times if there was something dreadfully wrong with him, that he couldn’t seem to look down on mortals as the lesser beings they were. Disposable. Inconsequential. Nothing but specks in the vastness of the universe. He could never have explained to Gabriel or Michael why he felt so strongly about protecting this particular child… except that the her presence gave him solace in the darker hours when the Ark grew too quiet and he couldn't shut out the memory of thousands of people crying out to a God that had abandoned them. Every time he looked into her eyes, he felt warm and fluttery with the knowledge that she was alive because of _him_.

It made him feel like an angel. A real, proper one, meant to protect and to heal and to guide humanity. He hadn't felt that way in so long. Not since Eden, in fact, over a thousand years ago.

_I do hope I didn't do the wrong thing._

_Oh, you're an angel. I don't think you can do the wrong thing._

"…I should have saved your mother, too," Aziraphale whispered.

Hannah tugged the last grape off the bunch and chucked it across the room. "Bye bye, grabbab!"

The grape rolled behind a crate. Then it rolled back out again, of its own volition. Aziraphale stiffened and tracked the grape's meandering path to the center of the room where it halted, quivering. A pulse of divine power was all the warning he got.

"Oh... oh damnation!" Aziraphale gasped and leapt to his feet. He spun around with the girl in his arms, feverishly searching for a place to hide her. A nearby crate was his only option, and he vanished its contents and shoved her inside, the lid slapped on haphazardly. He brushed off his robes and hid shaking hands behind his back as the grape swelled to the size of a melon and floated up to the same height as his head. There it hovered, blinding white and buzzing softly while the connection to Heaven stabilized.

_Stay calm, act normal_, Aziraphale told himself._ Nothing is wrong, everything is fine. You are a Principality, an angel of God, the epitome of all that is good and righteous. As far as they know, you have never done anything wrong ever in your entire life._

The orb crackled. A fuzzy image of Gabriel’s face appeared, slightly distorted by the sphere. “Aziraphale.”

“Hello, Gabriel,” Aziraphale squeaked, then coughed. “Sorry. Bit dehydrated.”

Gabriel laughed, the sound made crackly by the link between dimensions. “Funny! I’m glad you haven’t lost your sense of humor!"

It took Aziraphale a moment to grasp why he thought it was a joke. He forced a laugh. "Right. The rain, of course…”

"So I’m just calling in to check on the status of the Ark," Gabriel said. "Anything to report? Has Noah done all that was asked of him?”

“Oh yes, everything is going _very_ well, absolutely tip-top!” Aziraphale said loudly. Hoping to cover up the sound of the toddler thumping around in the crate behind him. “All seven thousand animals accounted for. Noah has been very good about looking after them. We’ve quite, um… settled in for the long haul down here.”

“Good, excellent!" Gabriel said with entirely too much cheer. "I’m glad to hear it! I’ll be sure to tell Head Office you deserve a commendation. God knows you’re taking one for the team here, being stuck on that Ark for one hundred and fifty days.”

"One hundred and… I’m sorry, _what?_” Aziraphale exclaimed. "But I thought… I was told it was meant to be forty days and nights?”

“Well, forty days of _rain_," Gabriel said, completely indifferent to his dismay. "But it will take much longer than that for the waters to recede and make dry land accessible, and then there's however long it takes for Noah to _find_ that dry land and offload the animals. Don’t help him with that, by the way. It's meant to be another test of his faith…”

Aziraphale nodded, lightheaded all of a sudden and no longer comprehending words. One hundred and fifty days. Hardly a blip in the grand scheme of things, yet some pathetic part of him wanted to weep at the sentence. One hundred and fifty days before he could walk the earth again, breathe the fresh air and behold the open sky and eat a sumptuous meal that would not end up as bilious slop in a bucket…

"…know this is a lot to ask of you, being in such close proximity to these simple creatures," Gabriel was saying. “Really, you're a better angel than all of us. Sandalphon thought you wouldn't last three days before turning someone to salt! Not that we were wagering, of course, and we had every faith in your…"

“Iraaa!” Hannah screeched. It was the closest approximation to his name she could manage, and also a sign that she was terribly bored. “_IIIRAAAA!_ IraIraIra—”

“What was that?”

Aziraphale waved his hand and rendered the girl temporarily mute. “That, ah… that was one of the birds! They’re really very good at mimicking the human tongue, you see. This one can almost say my name!”

He winced when he heard a deafening crash, shifting sideways and only just resisting the urge to turn around. "And _that_ was one of the hippos! Terribly sorry, there's an awful lot going on down here!”

"Uh huh," Gabriel said. Thankfully, he seemed too distracted to question further. "Listen Aziraphale, there's another reason I contacted you. During the first few days of rainfall, before the flooding really picked up, we had reports of heightened demon activity all over Mesopotamia.”

Aziraphale blinked. That was news to him. But he had been guarding the Ark at the time and not necessarily paying attention to current events. "Oh?"

"We'd thought nothing of it at first," Gabriel went on. "But once the humans started dying out _en masse_, we noticed some discrepancies in the number of souls passing through judgement. Namely… the number was much fewer than we estimated. We have reason to think a significant number of Mesopotamians might still be alive."

All the breath whooshed from his lungs. "There… there were more survivors?" Aziraphale gasped. Then he remembered he wasn't supposed to be happy about that. "I mean… survivors… in general? Obviously there weren't meant to be any in the first place…"

"I know, we were surprised too! But the strange thing is, we can't seem to find them. We know they didn't leave the country, we have angels guarding the borders even now, and we've searched up and down Mesopotamia with no luck. They're just gone without a trace."

_How odd_, Aziraphale thought. If these hypothetical survivors had built boats or found dry land to harbor them, there was still no possible way they could have shielded their presence from Heaven. But that mention of demonic activity nagged at him.

“…could this be Hell’s doing? Have they somehow interfered?”

"Yes, that's what we suspect as well," Gabriel said. “We’re doing what we can to gather more intel, but that's for us to worry about up here. Your duty on the Ark hasn't changed, I just wanted you to be informed of the situation. And of course, if you find _any_ sign of these survivors or the demons responsible, let us know and we'll send someone down right away to dispatch them.”

Aziraphale nodded with all the solemnity he could muster. He couldn’t hear any more thumping from the crate and prayed Hannah had settled down for a nap. "Of course, Gabriel. I'll let you know if anything comes up."

Gabriel seemed satisfied with that and let the connection fade after a few more pleasantries, the grape shrinking back to its normal size and tumbling to the floor. Aziraphale gave it at least thirty seconds before he went to fetch Hannah, turning over the conversation in his mind.

The lid was on the floor. And the crate, tipped over on its side, was empty.

Aziraphale stared. And stared some more. As if staring would somehow shift reality and show him the toddler sitting right where he had left her, safely tucked away and waiting for him.

"Where… where are you?" Aziraphale said, voice wavering. He checked behind the crate, under the crate, then peeked inside a few more crates in the vicinity. No Hannah. He searched the room back to front, top to bottom, calling out for her and cursing himself for rendering her mute. He wouldn't be able to undo that until she was in his line of sight, but just now she was doing a remarkably good job of staying _out_ of sight.

On his third lap of the storage room, he passed by the door and noticed it was cracked open. For the first time in twenty days, the horrible queasiness in his gut could not be blamed on the Ark.

"Oh… _bugger_."

* * *

"You bad, bad, _bad_ child!" Aziraphale scolded the misbehaving toddler tucked under his arm like luggage. It had taken him three hours to find her, during which he had run all over the Ark in a tizzy, desperately trying to pinpoint her aura through the white noise of seven thousand other creatures. There had been a moment of despair when he thought she might have crawled up to the deck and toppled over the side or wandered in with the lions and been eaten alive.

Neither of those things happened, thank God. He had found her in with the sheep, snuggled into their wool and napping contentedly. The ram and ewe had both cast him a most judgmental look as he retrieved the girl and fled.

“Did you hear me?” Aziraphale said. Once they reached the bottom of the stairs, he lifted her up in front of his face and did everything in his power to radiate disapproval. “You are not allowed out of my sight ever again, you misbehaving little… imp! I'm so _very_ angry with you!"

Hannah giggled and reached up to tug on his hair. “Soft! Sheepie soft.”

Shaking his head and muttering under his breath, Aziraphale scrubbed the dirt and feces from her face and continued on at a brisk pace. "And no more grapes for you either. Only manna bread from this moment on, I don't care how many tantrums you throw—"

He rounded the corner and bumped straight into someone. Aziraphale stumbled back, half shielding Hannah with his body and readying a miracle to wipe the memory of whoever he had run into.

"Oh goodness, terribly sorry, I didn't see you there…"

The rambling apology broke off. For where he had expected to see Noah or one of his sons, instead there were two young children he had never met before. In the light of two half melted candles, they looked gaunt and frightened and regarded him with very wide eyes.

“Run!” one of them hissed, the candle in her hand dropping as she fled. The second child followed on her heels at a dead sprint, bare feet thudding loudly on the wood.

Aziraphale looked at Hannah. Hannah looked at him. It took the angel far too long to gather his wits, snuff the candles and give chase. The intruders were swift, always just managing to keep around the next corner and out of sight, so he gave himself a miraculous boost of speed and focused on keeping track of their auras.

Though what he meant to do once he caught them, Aziraphale had no idea. These were obviously some of the survivors Gabriel had mentioned, though he couldn't imagine how they had lasted this long and boarded the Ark without his notice. Unless there were demons involved, in which case things had just gotten horrendously complicated. Aziraphale was woefully unprepared for a battle with the forces of darkness.

And there was always the risk that such a clash would draw the eyes of Heaven. Aziraphale glanced down at Hannah, who had already lost interest in the proceedings and was chewing on the tassel of his robe. His heart stuttered in its pointless rhythm. Foolish of him, really, to think he could get away with it. He had bought her a few extra weeks, yet now it would all come to naught.

The footsteps faded, followed by the sound of a door slamming. Aziraphale slowed and peeked around the corner, ready to leap back if anything threatening jumped out. But all he could see was a long hallway with one large door at the end. If he remembered rightly, that door opened onto a storage area which contained farming equipment and crates of seeds. Everything Noah's family would need to start anew.

Aziraphale gave the door a cursory glance and dismissed it. No need to check inside, the intruders couldn't be there. He began to turn around… then stopped in his tracks when he realized just how absurd that train of thought was.

Slowly, Aziraphale turned back. He had heard the footsteps come this way, he was sure of it. They could not have doubled back without him noticing. That door and the storage room beyond was the only conceivable place they could have gone. But as Aziraphale began to walk in that direction, he became more and more certain that there was _nothing_ behind that door. He was wasting his time, every instinct cried out. He shouldn't bother, there was nothing to find, _turn back, don't look, nothing to see here, move along_.

Standing directly in front of the door, Aziraphale raised a tentative hand and shivered when he sensed it. A whisper of power, a trace of suggestion magic. An unseen barrier that blurred his senses and sought to misdirect his attention elsewhere. It was so subtle, so skillfully done that he would never have noticed if he hadn't walked right up to it. And the barrier was _definitely_ demonic in nature, there was no mistaking the flavor of it.

Aziraphale considered his options. Then he cautiously brushed aside the barrier without breaking it, like passing through a curtain and letting it fall shut behind him. Pressing his ear to the door, he frowned when he heard multiple voices talking over each other—and one more familiar than the rest.

"Oi, the rest of you, keep it down! And you two! I told you _not_ to go wandering the boat! I warned you what would happen!"

"We're sorry, we didn't mean to!"

"Yesss, you damn well did, or else you wouldn't have done it. Who was it, who saw you?"

"I don't know! He looked like a medicine man. He had on this big white robe and…"

A hiss. "Oh, smite me now, we're fuc… right, all of you, stay here and _keep quiet_. I'll figure this out…"

"Crawly?" Aziraphale said in disbelief. He snapped his fingers, the door kindly swinging open on his command. He had taken exactly two steps inside when there was instant pandemonium. Screams rang out as _hundreds _of children scrambled away from the door, using the crates and bales of hay as cover, practically climbing over each other in a bid to hide from Aziraphale. Some of the younger children, no more than three or four years old, bunched up around the only adult in the room, who whipped around to face the door in a flurry of red hair and dark robes.

Crawly and Aziraphale stared at each other across the distance, and it was difficult to say who was more stunned by this turn of events. Aziraphale gaped at the fearful faces around him, mentally tallying them up and slowly grasping that these children could not have all come from Noah's village. Not even from five villages. These were the children of _every _Mesopotamian village, farm and tribe all crammed into one room. They ranged in age from late adolescents to barely old enough to walk, and when Aziraphale craned his head, he could just glimpse a long line of cradles and playpens along the back wall. Some of the adolescents quickly moved to stand between him and the babies, armed with makeshift weapons, though they seemed more petrified than fierce.

Crawly shifted, gently nudging the children clinging to him further back. Had his wings been visible, Aziraphale knew they would have been arching up, flaring out in hostility. From the set of his jaw and the hard glare in his eyes, Crawly looked braced for a fight, though why he assumed a fight was forthcoming was anyone's guess. Aziraphale was certainly not about to start anything with Hannah in his arms.

And Crawly seemed to understand that, eyes alighting on the toddler. "That's… not one of Noah's kids," he said.

"Um," Aziraphale stammered, heat flaring in his cheeks. This marked the second time Crawly had caught him in an act of noncompliance. It was becoming something of a pattern. "No. No, she isn't."

Crawly watched him carefully. "You saved her?"

"…and you saved them," Aziraphale said. He choked back a rush of tears. "_All_ of them."

Crawly balked. "No, that's not," he faltered, looking back to the children. Who were all notably watching him with open reverence, like he had hung the moon and stars and could protect them from anything. Crawly cursed under his breath and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Alright look, I can explain this…"

* * *

It took some time to calm the children down and convince them that Aziraphale had no intention of hurting them or throwing them overboard. Crawly had apparently stressed the importance of remaining undiscovered, if they valued their lives, and he was rightly furious at the two children who had snuck out on a lark and very nearly doomed them all. But now that the immediate danger had passed, the children let themselves be soothed and split off into their own games and social groups, no longer paying attention to the immortal beings.

Aziraphale let Crawly lead him further inside, somewhat dizzied by the controlled chaos before him. It should have been cramped and stifling and miserable, so many little bodies smuggled in one place, but Crawly had done something to the dimensions of the room, made it bigger on the inside so that the children had space to spread out and run around. A long line of baskets kept everyone supplied with never-ending meals of fish and bread, and the latrines in the far corner were spotless, as were the children themselves. Aziraphale could only assume Crawly kept up with their hygienic needs through copious use of demonic power.

Which might explain why he looked so rundown. He watched Crawly collapse onto the nearest haybale with a grunt, irritably waving for Aziraphale to join him. "Right, then," he said. "Suppose you'd like some answers?"

"I would, yes," Aziraphale said. He glanced around and plopped Hannah down in the nearest playpen, reasoning that she was much safer here than anywhere else on the Ark. Probably. And she seemed delighted with the abundance of toys and dolls available to play with.

Moving to join Crawly on the haybale, Aziraphale spread his hands wide. "First of all, may I ask _how?_ How on earth did you get them all on the Ark without my noticing? I was watching for intruders from the moment the rain began to fall."

Crawly snorted. "Yeah, watching the _door_. You never bothered to watch the back. It was as easy as poking another hole in the bottom and sealing it up when it was time to float. You really are the worst at keeping things out. I don't know what Heaven was thinking, putting you back on guard duty."

Aziraphale flushed. "Well,” he said snippily, “you're obviously very good at what you do. So good, in fact, that you couldn't curb the curiosity of a pair of _children_ even under threat of horrific death. Really, letting those two wander off like that was incredibly irresponsible! If Noah had found them instead of me…"

"I didn't _let them_ do anything," Crawly said. He glared across the room where the two troublemakers had been put on diaper duty for the foreseeable future, still reeling from the blistering lecture they had received. "They're just… you know how kids are. They get bored, they go looking for trouble, and I _might've_ forgotten to lock the door from the inside, but it's not my fault! I've only got the two eyes, I can't watch them all at once!"

Aziraphale couldn't come up with anything to say to that. Crawly had a point. Caring for and protecting one human child had been demanding enough, he couldn't imagine dealing with several hundred more with the fear of discovery always hanging over his head. The poor demon looked utterly shattered, ready to drop at any given moment.

"Anyway… getting them on the boat was the easy part.” Crawly rubbed his eyes. “Down Below helped with gathering them up and getting them here, but Beelzebub said it was my problem after that. They knew there was an angel on board, they didn't want to risk any other demons getting caught and smited."

"Smote," Aziraphale corrected and wondered why Crawly shot him such a murderous look. "So all of this really was Hell's doing? To flout the will of Heaven by…?"

"By saving those condemned to drown by God's hand?" Crawly reminded him icily. "Yeah, they came around once I explained it. The Almighty wants these kids dead for some _ineffable_ reason, because their parents were too far gone as sinners or something like that. So it only follows that keeping them alive goes directly against the Divine Plan. Which demons are all about, I'll remind you."

Aziraphale eyed him sidelong. He might have believed that… had he not seen for himself Crawly's appalled reaction when he first learned the purpose of the Ark. _So I didn’t imagine it after all._

Catching his look, Crawly sat up. "Oh no, no, don't look at me like that. I didn't save them to _save_ them, I saved them to spite your lot. This is all part of my diabolical plan."

Aziraphale smiled, ever so sweetly. "Oh. Is it?"

"Yes!" Crawly said, practically snarling and flapping his hands. "Just look at these kids! They're _traumatized_. Trust me, right now their souls are just… _stewing_ in rage and sorrow and all kinds of depravity and badness. Ripe for the taking once they've grown up! So don't you say anything about—"

"Excuse me? Mister Snake-Man?"

Crawly snapped his head around, the snarl gone in a blink. Before them stood one of the adolescents with an infant in his arms. The baby was no more than a few weeks old, Aziraphale thought with a pang of fresh grief. He must have been born just when the rains were beginning to fall.

"What?" Crawly demanded.

The adolescent plonked the baby straight into Crawly's lap. "He's not eating for me. But he always eats for you."

"Cause he knows better than to waste my time," Crawly said. But he rearranged the bundle in his lap, accepted a skin of goat's milk and soon enough cajoled the baby to suckle without much trouble.

Aziraphale was positively beaming by this point.

"Shut up," Crawly said without looking up.

"I didn't say a word," Aziraphale said. His smile slipped when the Ark tipped over yet another wave, noticeably bigger than the ones before it. Some of the children whooped and flung up their arms in delight, but the angel groaned and leaned forward, elbows on his knees and face in his hands.

"What's the matter with you?"

"Just a… touch of motion sickness," Aziraphale admitted wretchedly. He breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth, and told himself sternly that he was not allowed to be sick in front of the Enemy. "I'll be fine, please don't fret."

"I wasn't fretting," Crawly mumbled. And he wasn't, really. To all appearances, he seemed entirely preoccupied with the baby he was feeding. "Can't you just miracle it away?"

Aziraphale shook his head and suppressed a burp. "It's something intrinsic to this corporation, I'm afraid. Eliminating the symptoms doesn't solve the problem, it always comes back. And I'm over my quota as is."

"Quota?" Crawly said in disbelief. "Your… you mean to say your lot actually restricts how many miracles you can use?"

"…you mean to say Hell _doesn't?”_

"No, they let us do whatever we want!" Crawly said, a grin spreading across his face. "Oh, well now, that changes _everything_. Nice bit of intel you've just given me, angel. Thanks for that."

"That—that was not, I never intended—" Aziraphale spluttered, furious with himself and with the serpent now cackling at his blunder. "Oh, you wicked fiend! How dare you? I ought to—"

"Careful, you'll make yourself sick," Crawly said. But the mocking words were accompanied by a flick of his hand and the appearance of a clay cup filled with steaming liquid. "Here, peppermint tea. Some of the kids were getting seasick during the first week. This stuff helps."

Aziraphale gave the cup a suspicious sniff and wrinkled his nose. "And what exactly is… tea?”

"Uh, I dunno how to describe it. Basically plant water? See, you take some leaves, crush them and stick them in hot water, then strain it…"

"That sounds absolutely foul," Aziraphale declared. He hesitated, wary that Crawly might be trying to poison him, but after another rolling wave, he decided to take his chances. The first few sips went down easy, the sharp scent all but exploding in his sinuses, yet it was balanced out by the soothing heat sliding down his throat and settling in his gut. For the first time in weeks, his head cleared of the awful disorientation caused by the movement of the Ark, and he honestly couldn't tell whether he had the herb to thank or if the simple act of drinking something new had tricked his stomach into behaving for once.

"Oh. That's rather nice." Aziraphale breathed in the steam more deeply and took another decadent sip. "Thank you, Crawly. You've done me a great kindness."

"Yeah, fine, whatever, don't mention it," Crawly muttered.

Aziraphale glanced at him, and at the baby in his arms, struck by the absurdity of the situation. Taking a drink from the hand of Hell’s agent, engaging in polite conversation, when he really should be getting on with the smiting. He turned his attention back to the children, tapping the cup nervously with his fingertips. "So what will you do with them after the Flood? I imagine Hell will be keeping a close eye on them? Looking to corrupt the innocent and turn them to evil?"

Crawly shrugged one shoulder and made a noncommittal noise. "That's the basic idea. I'll have to find other humans to take them in first, spread them out across the world. Can't make it too easy for your side to find them and wipe them out again."

"Or perhaps my side will see this as an opportunity," Aziraphale said softly. "A chance to redeem these children after the failings of their parents and turn them to the path of kindness and mercy. A glimmer of hope in the face of calamity."

Crawly scoffed, but there was a line of tension in his shoulders that hadn't been there before. "You don't believe that for a second. If you did, you wouldn’t still be here talking to me. You’d have already popped Upstairs and told them all about what wiles the Serpent of Eden is up to. But you haven't. And you won't. Cause you know what they'll make you do."

He did know. Aziraphale could envision it with shocking clarity, and it made his blood run cold to contemplate. He watched Hannah gleefully stacking wooden blocks into a little tower.

"I'll kill you if you do," Crawly said under his breath. "Really, I'll do it. I'll tear your throat out right here, I don't care who sees it."

Which oddly wasn't as frightening as it should have been. The vicious threat sounded quite empty, born of desperation. But Aziraphale feigned alarm anyway. "Oh, _dear me_. I suppose I have no choice. I just have so _many_ duties that need attending here on the Ark, I really can’t afford to be discorporated right this second. Any rumors on certain stowaways will just have to wait. Maybe a decade or three?"

"Make it five."

"Five, then," Aziraphale agreed, though with great reluctance. At least that was what he told himself. "Such a shame, but I suppose I must concede. You've outwitted me for a second time, wily serpent. But next time you shall not be so lucky. You will be in for a good smiting when I get my hands on you."

"Have you ever actually smited a demon?"

"_Smote_."

"You know what I mean!"

Aziraphale stopped trying to fight the amused twitch of his lips. "Someday, perhaps. Though I was never issued a replacement for my sword, so that day might be a long time coming."

Crawly chuckled, some of the aggression easing from his frame. Aziraphale let himself smile tentatively in return. A tiny, guilt-ridden part of him made some noises about consorting with the enemy and shirking his sacred duty, but he set that aside for now. He had told the truth, after all. Gabriel had said it himself, Aziraphale’s first duty was to the Ark. As long as Crawly had nothing else nefarious planned, there was really no need to make a fuss. They could be civil about this.

Had it been any other demon, it would have been a very different story. Aziraphale was not naïve, contrary to all appearances. He had encountered more than enough fiends in the past thousand years to know beyond a doubt that Crawly was nothing like the rest of his kind. Even his most creative and conniving wiles were halfhearted at best. To the untrained eye, some of them looked like miracles in disguise.

If Crawly had truly wished to go against the Divine Plan, he could have gone about it in so many unspeakable ways. He could have destroyed the Ark, if he had really put his mind to it. This room could have been used to conceal an army of demons and wicked men, ready to slaughter Noah and his family and every animal aboard. Aziraphale would have been powerless to stop the bloodshed, and Hell would have handsomely rewarded the instigator of such cruelty.

But instead… Crawly had done this.

"You know," Crawly said after a moment, "I didn't mention it earlier, but I never thought I'd see you again after Eden. Figured Heaven would demote you for the sword and give you a desk job.”

Aziraphale cringed at the reminder. "Ah. Yes, well… the demotion was only to be expected. Michael was most disappointed in me for letting you gain entrance to the Garden. But Gabriel vouched for my merits and convinced her to let me stay on Earth as a Principality. I owe him a great deal for that. He said since I was so fond of God’s creations, I ought to be in a position that let me serve humanity more directly.”

“And then you went behind his back to help someone you weren’t meant to. Again.”

"…let’s not discuss my failings,” Aziraphale grumbled, sulking over his tea.

“It’s not a failing,” Crawly said. When Aziraphale looked up, the demon made a show of looking anywhere else. “I mean… I'm just saying… it's the whole point, isn’t it? Helping people? That’s what angels are _supposed_ to do.”

His heart contracted painfully, the memory flashing through his mind of a mother screaming her prayer over the pounding rain and rushing water.

Crawly nodded in Hannah’s direction. "Why did you save her anyway? Is she special? Another part of the Ineffable Plan?"

Aziraphale worried at his lip. "No, nothing like that. I didn't really have a reason at the time. She was just… I-I don't know why I saved her."

It was a lie. He knew why he had done it, but to admit it out loud would be tantamount to proclaiming that he didn't agree with God's plan. That he believed Heaven had done something _wrong_. And Aziraphale couldn’t admit to that any more than Crawly could admit to an act of kindness.

The baby in Crawly’s arms fussed a little. Crawly hefted him up and let him rest against his shoulder, setting aside the empty skin of goat’s milk. He regarded Aziraphale with a lopsided grin. "So, then. Have we got an arrangement?"

Aziraphale choked on air. "I'm _sorry?_"

"You don't tell anyone about my kids, and I won't tell anyone about yours. We both get what we want and go on our way. Simple enough, one favor for another. I won't even make you sign your name in blood."

"I… you don't… it's not an arrangement, don't call it that!" Aziraphale snapped. He drew himself up with righteous indignation. "I am an angel. I do not make _arrangements_ with demons. This is just… a temporary ceasefire. Nothing more."

"Oh, look at you, Mr. Holier-Than-Thou…" Crawly drawled, but he was interrupted mid-snark when the infant burped and spit up all over his robe. Aziraphale muffled hysterical laughter in his sleeve, caught completely off guard by the look on Crawly's face, somewhere between startled and downright _offended_. For the sake of politeness, he turned the other way and gave it a solid thirty seconds while Crawly cursed and hissed and cleaned himself up with a snap of his fingers.

"Not a word out of you! And not a word to _anyone_ outside this room!"

"My dear fellow, I would not dream of it," Aziraphale said and was absurdly proud that he managed to keep a straight face.

* * *

On the fortieth day, the rain stopped falling, and Aziraphale nipped upstairs to check on Noah. Really, he should have been doing that all this time, but it wasn’t as if there was anyone around to reprimand him. The poor man didn’t appear to have slept a wink since Aziraphale last saw him. He staggered around in a fog of frazzled exhaustion, diligently seeing to the needs of the animals while completely neglecting his own, only sometimes heeding his sons when they coaxed him to eat and drink. Aziraphale deeply admired the man's unshakeable faith and regretted that he had nothing more to offer than encouraging words. _Buck up, there’s a dear fellow. You're doing the Lord's work, just keep at it_.

But Gabriel had been clear. This was Noah's task alone, and as long as he was doing it, there was no need for further interference. And Aziraphale had other matters that required his attention. So while Noah released a dove to seek out dry land, Aziraphale rejoined Crawly in the equally thankless task of keeping several hundred children alive and in good spirits.

That last one was more difficult than he might have anticipated. While the children appeared to be coping for the most part, it was equally apparent that whatever emotional strength had carried them through the first forty days was flagging as the weeks wore on. More and more often, they woke from nightmares and cried for their lost families. Some bullied and stole from each other, old habits learned from their parents. Some daring few made more attempts to sneak away and explore the Ark, which forced Aziraphale to chase down and sternly lecture the offenders. Over and over, he repeated the promise that the Flood would not last forever and they would soon walk on dry land again. One excited boy kept asking if they would all turn into fish people and live in the ocean, and he seemed disappointed when Aziraphale assured him otherwise.

“I just don’t understand where he got such a silly idea. He kept going on and on about some underwater city at the bottom of the ocean. What sorts of things have his parents been telling him?"

"That's nothing, angel. You ought to hear some of the theories they've come up with for how the universe was created. You know most humans think the earth is flat? Some of these kids kept asking me when the Ark was going to sale off the edge and drop into the Underworld."

"Good Lord! What a preposterous notion!"

"That's humans for you. They're not born knowing things like we are, but that doesn't stop them trying to work it out. ‘S called an imagination.”

“Seems like a terribly unreliable thing to have. And I do hope you educated them on that whole flat earth nonsense."

“Well…”

“_Crawly!_”

“Oh, let them have their fun! They’ll figure it out someday…”

They had many conversations like that. Particularly at night when the children were asleep and it was just the two of them looking after the babies, endlessly feeding and rocking and keeping each other company. Aziraphale was rather taken aback at how well they got on, so long as they never broached the topic of their respective employers. It should have been terribly awkward, an angel and a demon forced into such close quarters, but they found a rapport and a balance between them. The children called them Snake-Man and Medicine Man respectively, though why they assumed Aziraphale knew anything about medicine was a complete mystery.

Somewhere around day one hundred and fifteen, Aziraphale found himself wistfully hoping he and Crawly could maintain this fragile truce even after the Flood. He spent the next week berating himself for entertaining such a foolish thought, and from then on he tried very deliberately to be less affable and more standoffish. Not that Crawly seemed to notice. He never took the hint, refused to be driven away, constantly prodding and teasing and plying him with more tea until Aziraphale gave in and let himself be drawn back into their good-natured squabbling. He justified it by telling himself these were extraordinary circumstances, soon to be forgotten when the Flood ended. This would be the first, last and _only_ time he ever helped a demon.

On day one hundred and thirty-nine, the dove returned with an olive branch. And later that night, standing on the deck beneath a sky full of stars, Aziraphale caught sight of a mountaintop. Just a little one, a spur of rock barely five paces across jutting out of the water, but he was so delighted that he flew down and stood on it, letting the damp earth squish through his toes. He hurried back to the Ark to bring the good tidings, olive branch in hand, tiptoeing around the sleeping children in search of Crawly.

Though strangely, he couldn't find Crawly at first. It took several laps around the room before he located the serpent tucked up against a water barrel, deeply asleep with his arms and legs coiled around himself in a manner that was anatomically improbable for humans. But that was not the thing that made Aziraphale bite his lip against a disbelieving chuckle.

“Dear boy, you've been ambushed,” Aziraphale said. He crouched down and surveyed the damage with a fond smile. Crawly's hair was all in disarray, braided into a thick crown around his head with colorful cords and ribbons trailing down his shoulders, little glass beads catching the light. The whole effect was lovely and suited him very well. It was amazing the children had managed it without waking him.

Amazing and a little concerning. Angels and demons didn't sleep, as a general rule. Their bodies were mere shells and required no rest or sustenance, but the same could not be said of their essence. Spiritual fatigue could strike without warning if one stretched their powers a little too far, and Crawly had been running himself ragged, what with keeping the children comfortable and maintaining the illusory spell on the door. He'd had no respite for months on end.

He ought to wake him, Aziraphale thought, now biting his lip for an entirely different reason. Not out of concern, of course, a demon's wellbeing was none of his business. But… just to make sure this was only a nap and not a sign that Crawly was losing the strength to hold himself to his corporeal form. The last thing he needed was for Crawly to discorporate and leave his demonic work unfinished. Then Aziraphale really _would_ have a moral dilemma on his hands, and he wasn't prepared to deal with that.

Aziraphale gave his shoulder a tentative prod. "Crawly? Are you, ah… feeling alright? You're meant to be watching the children, you know. I was only gone for an hour, you ought to have waited until I came back.”

He was answered with a drowsy mumble, followed by Crawly's eyes slowly blinking open. The pupils were blown wide, and Aziraphale watched in fascination as they shrunk back to their usual slits. Crawly blinked again, confusion stealing over him momentarily, but his awareness sharpened when their eyes met.

"You fell asleep—"

Crawly lunged. Aziraphale stumbled and hit the ground hard on his back with Crawly crouched above, hissing and wild-eyed, clawed fingers digging into his neck and the front of his robes.

Aziraphale held himself very still, so caught off guard by the attack that it never occurred to him to fight back. "Whatever is the matter?" he said in a low voice.

Teeth bared, Crawly whipped his head back and forth, agitated gaze sweeping over the room and the children sleeping in scattered piles of blankets and straw. All was quiet and undisturbed, save for the occasional cry of an infant or whispers from the older ones up past their bedtime. It was a night just like all the others before, and Aziraphale was at a loss to understand what had spooked the serpent.

The hands gripping his robe relaxed. Crawly turned his unblinking gaze back to Aziraphale, and for a moment he looked… baffled. That was really the only way to describe it. Only after careful consideration did he pull back and let Aziraphale push himself up and dust off his robe.

"And just _what_ was the meaning of that?" Aziraphale asked. He tried not to sound too huffy and was sure he failed utterly.

Crawly glanced away, scowling and absently patting the braids and ribbons. "Sorry," he muttered with no further explanation.

(Indeed, it would be many years and many bottles of wine before Crawly admitted the truth. He had been keeping a very close watch on Aziraphale for the past few months. Feigning amity while harboring a deep suspicion of the angel, convinced that Aziraphale meant to betray him and do away with the children as soon as his back was turned. His succumbing to exhaustion had been an accident, a momentary lapse, and would have been the perfect opportunity for Aziraphale to act.

(But the anticipated treachery hadn’t come. Instead Crawly had woken to find nothing amiss, all the children right where he'd left them, and somehow this had left him _more_ unnerved. All demons have trust issues, if we’re being very honest. It would be at least three millennia before Crawly learned to take such gestures at face value, at least where Aziraphale was concerned.)

But Aziraphale wasn't to know any of that just yet. When no explanation was forthcoming, he settled for a tetchy sigh. “Well, I woke you up to tell you something, but now I've forgotten it."

"What's with the olive branch?" Crawly said, stifling a yawn.

Aziraphale sucked in a breath, the initial excitement bursting back like a ray of sunshine. "Oh, that was it! The waters are receding! We’ll all be walking on dry land again very soon. Isn't that good news?"

Crawly snapped his mouth shut. He took the branch with a small frown and slowly traced his fingertips along the smooth wood.

"Won't be long now," Aziraphale said, puzzled that Crawly was not already shouting and jumping for joy. "Then we can put all this business with the Ark behind us and go back to the usual way of things. You'll be off doing… whatever it is you do. Temptations and wiles, I expect. And I can go back to blessing and thwarting and never look at another cloven hoof for as long as I live."

Crawly made some kind of noise in his throat that was impossible to interpret. He was still staring at the olive branch, one lush leaf pinched between his fingers.

"…well, do control yourself, dear boy," Aziraphale tutted. "No need to get overexcited."

"No, no, it's _great_," Crawly said with all the enthusiasm of a wet blanket. “Fantastic. Best news I’ve heard in months.”

“Yes, it is," Aziraphale said. He nodded at the sleeping children. "Should we tell them, do you think?"

"Mm, not the younger ones," Crawly said. “You know how they are, they'll just keep badgering us more than they do already. But the older ones… I think they could use something to look forward to."

Aziraphale hummed. "Tomorrow, then," he said.

A sleepy cry arose from the direction of the cradles. "Ira?"

"Coming, my dear, I'm coming!" Aziraphale called, already up and bustling over to a very drowsy Hannah, who held out her arms in an imperious demand to be picked up. “What’s wrong, do you need something to eat?”

“Grabbab!”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake…”

In the back of his mind, he was aware of Crawly watching him while he fussed over Hannah, those yellow eyes never leaving him for a moment. But as he had no idea what to make of it yet, Aziraphale put the oddity out of his mind.

* * *

So the days passed, one by one, until there came a night when the Ark ran aground and startled most of the inhabitants awake. Aziraphale expended a minor miracle to put Noah's family back to sleep and keep them that way until morning. They could use the rest, he reasoned to himself, after all the strenuous labor they had been forced (well, politely commanded) to undertake. And the animals wouldn't know the difference either way. They seemed content to doze in their stalls and firmly ignore the noise of hundreds of children walking two-by-two up through the levels of the Ark.

Aziraphale took a deep breath and concentrated. The Ark only had a single massive door, too heavy for humans to open and carved with celestial runes to prevent the entry of demons—not that the latter had made a difference in the end. The runes glowed very softly at his touch, and there were gasps behind him as the great door swung outward. Cold air swept inside, fresh air, and swept away the stale reek of unwashed beasts. Aziraphale breathed in deeply before taking stock of exactly where they were. The Ark had come to rest at the top of a mountain with all the world spread out beneath them under a multitude of stars. The lands at the base of the mountain still looked like a swamp, muddy and waterlogged with many vast lakes and bogs that would be difficult to traverse. But Aziraphale had to trust that Crawly would find a way through without endangering the children.

"Anything?"

Aziraphale let his awareness spread as far as he could stretch it. He searched for auras, angelic or demonic, anything at all that could threaten the safety of those behind him. But all he sensed were harmless creatures. Fish for the most part and a few birds that must have flown in from other lands. Nothing else beyond that.

"It's safe.” He glanced back. "Well. As safe as it ever will be. I don't sense any heavenly presence."

Crawly nodded, hood already drawn up against the wind. "My lot have been in contact,” he said. “The border’s clear. Seems like your side have given up the search.”

“Are you sure you don’t need my assistance? I could at least accompany you to the border...”

"Eh, you’ve done enough,” Crawly said, waving him off. “I can take it from here, angel."

One of the children tugged on Crawly's robe. They eyed the dangerous drop beyond the door. "How do we get down?"

Aziraphale faced the open door again, recalling the wooden ramp tucked away in storage down below. He summoned it with a wave of his hand, and the ramp settled into place with a soft _thwump_, ready and waiting for their group to disembark. At the same time, Crawly cupped his hands and blew a cluster of multicolored fairy lights into existence, which had the effect of both lighting the way and distracting the children from any trepidation they might have felt. Awed by the lights and eager to be outside again, the children trotted down the ramp hand in hand with their friends and siblings, chattering away in their excitement. The adolescents looked nothing short of relieved to be back on dry land again as they carried and shepherded the youngest down the ramp.

Crawly sidled up to him. "So. It's time."

"It is," Aziraphale said, voice breaking for no reason he could name. Hannah was in his arms, idly chewing on the tassel of his robe again. He held her up and had to take a steadying breath before he spoke again.

"Now… now you be good for Crawly, do you understand? He's going to look after you for a bit. You’ll have a new home, somewhere far away from here. With any luck, you won’t meet another angel for as long as you live.”

She smiled brightly and grabbed his nose. "Ira gotta nose!"

"…I know, dear," Aziraphale said. He kissed her forehead and uttered a swift blessing. “Oh, I’ll miss you. Please be good, won’t you? Do your best not to end up in Hell.”

“Hey, now, don’t undermine my corruption,” Crawly said without any heat.

With one last sniffle, he passed her into Crawly’s arms. How strange it was, Aziraphale thought as he watched Crawly conjure up a sling to carry her against his chest. Strange that he would sooner trust this child to the care of a demon than one of his fellow angels.

"Right," Crawly said. He drew a veil across his face so that only his yellow eyes were visible. The beads were still in his hair, the fairy lights overhead glinting and shining off their facets. "Until next time, I suppose."

Aziraphale nodded. "Yes, I rather think we'll meet again." He told himself firmly that he was _not_ allowed to look forward to their next meeting, nor pray that he didn't have to wait another thousand years for it.

Crawly waved at the children milling about the base of the ramp. "Thanks for this. For not, you know… discorporating me on sight. Guess I owe you one, eh?"

"I'm glad I was able to be of service," Aziraphale said. Then he realized how _that_ sounded and hastened to add. "Not… not of service to Hell, you understand! I merely… I am an angel, after all, and it is my duty to prioritize in the field. If I _happen_ to decide that the Ark takes precedence over a mere handful of surviving Mesopotamians… well, that's just efficient allocation of cosmic resources."

Crawly snorted and burst out laughing. "_Efficient allocation of cosmic resources?_"

"What? I didn't make that up. Gabriel has a meeting every other decade to make sure we're all putting our celestial wages to good use!"

"Stop, I can't!" Crawly coughed out in between guffaws. He clung to Aziraphale's shoulder, quite unnecessarily letting the angel take most of his weight. "I can't _believe_… do they really talk like that up there?"

"At times," Aziraphale mumbled. He was reluctant to admit how much he disliked it. The voice of an angel was meant to be the most exquisite sound in existence, a source of divine rapture and inspiration for all who heard it. But it was difficult to remember that when Gabriel droned on and used words like _deadlines_ and _expenditures_.

Or maybe he had been among humans for too long. The more Aziraphale watched these mortals evolve and change and _grow_, the more aware he became of how stagnant angels and demons were by comparison.

Crawly was an exception, of course. Not that he was paying attention.

The hand gripping his shoulder loosened, releasing the folds of his robe and slipping off. It was a very deliberate motion. Like Crawly had suddenly become aware of their proximity and thought better of it. Aziraphale folded his hands before him and did his best to avoid eye contact while Crawly cleared his throat and turned to walk down the ramp.

"Be seeing you, angel."

Aziraphale inclined his head. "Farewell, Crawly. God be with y…"

He caught himself just in time before the habitual phrase left his lips. Crawly whipped around, both eyebrows flying up.

"Er, I mean… good luck! Safe travels! Mind how you go and all that."

Crawly kept staring. Aziraphale stood there awkwardly, and his hands were equally useless, caught somewhere between waving and shooing since he didn't dare press them together in the traditional blessing. There was always bowing, he supposed, but something in him rankled at prostrating himself before a demon. The safest bet was to do nothing, but it seemed so _rude_ to just stand here unmoving and wait for Crawly to walk away. How exactly did one say to the enemy, _It was lovely to see you again, except it wasn't really since we shouldn't be meeting in the first place, let us now go our separate ways and pretend the past one hundred and fifty days never happened?_

Hannah squirmed and stuck out a hand. "Bye bye!" she called out. "Ira, bye bye! _BYE BYE!_"

"What does _bye bye_ mean?" Crawly asked, dubious.

"I have _no_ idea," Aziraphale said with a hopeless shrug. But her enthusiasm was infectious, and he couldn't help smiling and twiddling his fingers. "_Bye bye_ to you too, dear one."

Hannah shrieked in delight and kept waving over Crawly’s shoulder long after the demon had strode down the ramp. Aziraphale watched him gather up the children and begin to lead them down the mountainside, the clusters of fairy lights swooping and darting overhead. Within minutes, they were out of sight, and with Crawly shielding their auras, Aziraphale couldn't sense them either. They might as well have vanished off the face of the earth.

He shivered and looked at the stars and tried to convince himself that he wasn't as alone as he suddenly felt. Aziraphale would be plenty busy in the coming days, what with making sure Noah's family was settled and getting the animals breeding until the region was again filled with life. And after all of that, it was back up to Heaven to make his final report. A report which would, by necessity, be heavily embellished and filled with lies by omission. Somehow, by some miracle, he would have to keep a straight face as he told his superiors what an _honor_ it had been to carry out God's will, how he was so very humbled and thrilled to have been an integral part of the Great Plan. And all the while carrying with him the memory of bewitching amber eyes and the bubbling laughter of a child.

"I am… a _terrible_ angel," Aziraphale lamented, the past one hundred and fifty days catching up to him. Whisking the ramp back to the hold and sealing the door again, he went to find the nearest water barrel with the intent of turning every drop into wine. He rather thought he had earned himself a drink.


End file.
